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A recently released report from the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development provides a roadmap for putting relationships at the center of education. While the concept is widely accepted, the question is: Do we have the will to make a relationships-first approach real in every school across the country? This approach is important for every student, and it is especially urgent for students facing the most adversity and instability. Brain science on...

The traditional medicine wheel, symbolizing balance and interconnection, can serve as a framework for improving the mental well-being of First Nations people in Manitoba. That's the key recommendation from a mental-health study conducted by eight First Nations communities in partnership with the First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba (FNHSSM) and researchers from the University of Manitoba. "Traditional teachings have to come back in order [for us] to know who we are and how...

How do you handle good things that happen to you? Do you relish in the success or let your mind go to something that brings you down? You might be inadvertently sabotaging your own happiness by allowing negative thoughts to creep in when something good comes your way. For instance, consider something good in your life – a small accomplishment on your work project, the desire for the chocolate ice cream cone you are ordering, the joy of your team winning a game, or the connection you feel...

A place to turn in crisis. Nashville’s new psychiatric ER is days away from accepting patients full-time. It doesn’t look like an ER, but Adam Graham doesn’t want it to. Take away the flashing lights and harsh sounds, and The Mental Health Cooperative has created an environment tailored to mental health crisis. “If we were in a crisis, if a loved one of ours was in a crisis, what would we want it to be like for them?’” Graham, Director of Emergency Psychiatric Services, said. “From the...

It’s only January and already, I’m counting down the days to spring when warm weather will arrive. The long, cold months of winter can be isolating—the snow and subzero temperatures make it difficult to get out and about. Winter is particularly tough for children who can’t go outside to play, and for newcomers from warmer climates who are not accustomed to the cold. For people who don’t have meaningful social connections, the cold weather season can exacerbate the isolation they face...

José Sánchez crossed three borders on his own to get to Oakland, California when he was just 17. But once here, he found another barrier that proved even more difficult to overcome — graduating high school. Sánchez is one of more than 200,000 children and youth under 18 who since 2014 crossed the U.S. border without their parents. When a minor turns themselves in or is detained by immigration authorities, they are turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, then sent to live with...

It takes moxie to flip an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one — particularly for folks over 60. Most baby boomers approach retirement age unwilling to follow basic healthy lifestyle goals established by the American Heart Association, said Dr. Dana King, professor and chairman of the department of family medicine at West Virginia University, referencing his university’s 2017 study comparing the healthy lifestyle rates of retired late-middle-aged adults with rates among those still working.

By P. Berman, K. Hecht, & A. Hosack That Claire is nothing but trouble. I am so tired. My back is killing me; I wish I could just leave that bitch and her bastard at the hospital. That brat better not cry all the way home in the car. Bill had been furious to get the call to pick Claire up. He had just gotten back from the farm and his body ached all over from working a 12- hour shift. He thought about just letting Claire wait a few hours but realized that would interfere with the party...

CHICAGO – AS BEST AS HE can recall, the first time Daniel James used heroin was in 2009 or 2010, when he was in his late 30s. It was shortly after he'd been released from prison for the second or third time, resettling not far from West Garfield Park, the hardscrabble neighborhood where he grew up. A high school dropout scraping by as a part-time forklift operator, James was partial to smoking pot or sniffing cocaine in his free time, hoping to numb a lifetime of pain. He'd been sexually...

On April 27, 2017, Jack Talaska, a lawyer for the poor in Lafayette, La., had 194 felony cases. 113 clients had been formally charged. The rest are not pictured. High-level felonies carry sentences of 10 years or more and should each get 70 hours of legal attention, according to a workload study. [For more on this story by RICHARD A. OPPEL JR. and JUGAL K. PATEL, go to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/31/us/public-defender-case-loads.html ]

WASHINGTON – Incidents of sexual assault at U.S. military academies spiked nearly 50 percent in the past school year despite years of focus on the problem and declarations of zero tolerance, according to results of a survey by the Pentagon. The number of students reporting unwanted sexual contact totaled 747 in the 2017-18 academic year, compared with 507 in 2015-16, according to anonymous surveys of cadets and midshipmen. Unwanted sexual contact ranges from groping to rape. "We’re...

In recent years, a small but growing number of neuroscientists, lawyers, and policy-makers have highlighted the dangers of solitary confinement and are campaigning to minimize use of the practice and, eventually, abolish it completely. The conditions of solitary confinement vary, but typically involve locking prisoners up in a small, windowless cell for 22 to 24 hours a day, with little or no human interaction or other forms of stimulation, often for extended periods of time. A general...